Twitter 101

Publishing Experience:I mistakenly self-published out of frustration, four novels. I'll never do that again. Just wanted to see my books in print so badly. I didn't have experience or marketing ability for them to be successful. Now I know those books will never see the light of day. Bummer. But fingers crossed I find a new agent soon and then maybe, just maybe, I'll find traditional success.

Posted 14 November 2015 - 06:35 PM

So I'm not new to the writing, querying or even submission process. But I will be the first to admit I am totally IGNORANT about the query process on Twitter. I held out even joining Twitter until very recently. Right now I'm using it to update my (very few) followers on my submission and writing process. But I keep seeing agents and writers talking about Pitch Warts and Pitch Slam or whatever they are called. I'd love to get in on this, but I'm clueless. Is there anyone out there who is willing to give me a basic rundown of how this works? How often are they held? How do you participate? Is it open to anyone? And...do I have to come up with a 140 character or less hook/pitch to participate?

I'd appreciate either posts here or you can message me directly.

I would really appreciate the help. I'm sure it's all covered somewhere on this forum but there's so much information it's a bit confusing. I'd like someone to sum it all up for me in a nutshell.

Thanks!

CK Morgan

Author/Paralegal

"There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed." ~ Ernest Hemingway

Publishing Experience:KAT AND MEG CONQUER THE WORLD (HarperTeen '17)(contemporary YA)

Posted 15 November 2015 - 06:11 PM

Here are a few of the big ones:

#PitMad: Held a few times a year. You tweet a pitch for your novel up to three times on the day. If an agent likes your pitch, they will "Like" your tweet. You can then look at their Twitter page to see what that like means. Usually it means something like they want you to send them your query plus 25 pages and include "PitMad" in the subject line of the email. More info here: http://www.brenda-drake.com/pitmad/

Other hashtags that you might see on twitter, such as #PitchWars, are actually blog pitch contests, not twitter pitch contests. People just use the hashtag to talk about the contest. Some examples of those: #PitchWars, #QueryKombat, #NewAgent